The Innocents Club. Taylor Smith

Чтение книги онлайн.

      Chapter Three

      As her plane touched down at Los Angeles International Airport, Mariah tried to tell herself that her only objective here was to do the job she’d been sent to do, and do it fast. Make contact with Yuri Belenko, see where his interests lay and file her contact report. If he seemed amenable to doing a little freelance work on the side, Ops would assign him a handler. Or not. Their call. As for her, she’d be free to pick up her rental car and the keys to the beach house, meet Lindsay’s plane and get on with a much-needed vacation. End of story.

      That’s what she told herself. The truth was a little more complex, as truth tends to be.

      They say time heals all wounds, but it’s not entirely true. Some never really heal. On the surface, recovery may seem complete, but certain traumas leave a residual weakness that lurks in a troubled soul like a subterranean fault line, prone to unexpected eruption. There was such a susceptibility inside Mariah, unknown even to herself—a deep, dark place where resentment simmered and bubbled like hot, sulfurous magma. Until now, it had never percolated up to that place where liquid rage hardens into cold calculated action. But it’s the nature of such fault lines to give way without warning, and the explosive results are nearly always devastating—even to innocent bystanders.

      She checked into the Beverly Wilshire Hotel around noon, with an hour or so to kill before she had to head over to get the lay of the land at the Arlen Hunter Museum. The Romanov exhibit was set to open at six.

      While she waited, Mariah decided to give Chap Korman a call. She tipped the bellboy who’d delivered her bag to her suite, then settled into a deeply upholstered wing chair, propping her feet on the bed’s quilted floral spread, and dialed Korman’s number from memory. In the twenty years since her mother’s death, when Mariah had become the reluctant guardian of Ben Bolt’s prolific output, she’d gotten to know the literary agent well.

      “Mariah! I wasn’t expecting you for another couple of days.”

      She smiled at the sound of his voice, although it sounded more wavery each time they spoke, Mariah thought sadly, anticipating the day when this last, best link to her past would be gone. Chap was alternately coy and grumpy about his age, but he’d been older than Ben by several years, so she calculated that he had to be at least in his mid-seventies by now. He’d long since left the bustle of New York to nurse his arthritic joints in the warmer climes of southern California, but he continued to represent a roster of long-time clients, even championing the occasional new one when he found a writer he believed in.

      “I just got in. I’m staying at the Beverly Wilshire,” she told him. “I was drafted for a short-term assignment, so I had to come early.”

      “Aha! A secret mission,” he said delightedly. “Can’t tell me what it is, right, or else you’d have to kill me?”

      She rolled her eyes. “You read too many spy novels, Chap.”

      “Hey, this is exciting. You’re the only spook I know.”

      “Big thrill. I could introduce you to twenty thousand other grunts who toil away in the same obscurity I do.”

      “So, is Lindsay with you on this covert job?”

      “No, she’s staying with friends. She flies in Thursday.”

      “Any chance you’ll take me up on my offer? I’m just rattling around this big old place, you know. There’s plenty of room.”

      Chap had retired to a lovely, bougainvillea-covered house in Newport Beach, of all places—an irony that never escaped her, since she tended to think of Newport as “the scene of the crime,” having spent a fairly miserable youth there. Since she hadn’t returned to the place in twenty years, she’d never actually seen Chap’s house, except in photos. But his wife of fifty years had passed away the previous year, and Mariah knew he was lonely. She felt a twinge of guilt for not accepting the invitation.

      “I really appreciate the offer. This cottage we’ve got is right around the corner. We’ll practically be neighbors. That’s the main reason I jumped on the place when the offer came up. I need some one-on-one with Lins, though. You know, kind of a mother-daughter-bonding-healing thing.”

      “I thought as much,” he conceded, “otherwise I’d have gone all cantankerous on you. How’s that little copper-haired honey of mine doing these days?”

      “Oh, Lord! She’s fifteen. Need I say more?”

      “No, I guess not.” Chap had raised sons, not daughters, but he had a good imagination. “What about Mom?”

      “Day by day. Isn’t that the conventional СКАЧАТЬ